Pinstripe Preview: Brian McCann
By: Nick Scott
I don’t think anyone
else was harder during the regular season on Brian McCann than I was, myself. I
found myself disappointed that this $85 million man wasn’t hitting 30 home runs
and batting above .250, but when I looked at his career numbers I found myself
a bit more understanding about his performance. Simply put, while I think Brian
McCann is an all-star caliber catcher, he is not the elite one he has been
hyped to be.
This all was far
unrealistic however. McCann hasn’t ever hit 30 home runs. In fact he’s never
even hit 25. True, McCann has been consistent and hit at least 20 home runs
eight of his nine full seasons in the big leagues, but not once has he topped the
30 mark. By this career trend, McCann’s 23 shots were actually a success in his
first full season in the Bronx. I don’t see any reason for this to stop and
feel you can pencil McCann in for another 20-25 home runs this year. Sure, the
shift might be hurting his average, but it can’t stop him if he’s hitting it
out as he’s done consistently for the last decade.
Speaking of the shift,
it was pretty brutal watching McCann struggle with it all this year. Since its
introduction to the league the shift has really killed the average of a lot of
players (Mark Teixeira) and McCann seems to becoming a victim of it. Or is he?
McCann hit .256 in
2013, but the year before he hit a meager .230, which is right on the .232 he
hit his first year in pinstripes. The most obvious place to point fingers is at
the shift. True the shift hurt McCann on ground balls as his average on
grounders was an abysmal .131. That’s killer low and definitely hurt his
average. However, oddly enough, McCann actually hit .286 on all pull side
balls. Thus, aside from ground balls, the shift wasn’t exactly affecting
McCann’s average.
That’s when I found it.
It being a very bizarre and out of sorts stat. While McCann hit .292 against
left handed pitching this year, he hit a very mind boggling .209 against right
handed pitching. Obviously 99% of the league hits better against opposite
handed pitching, thus a number against righties that low is was out of line.
McCann has a career
average of .263 against left handed pitching and .276 against righties further
showing just how strange this number is. McCann hit 67 points lower against
righties than his career average, which doesn’t seem right.
This my friends is what
we call bad luck. I can’t in good faith call a 67 point dip in average against
the handedness you should hit best a trend after just one year. His career
numbers show it. This isn’t how Brian McCann hits righties and it appears he
had an off year hitting the ball to reach base. This isn’t too unreasonable to
me. Playing in the Bronx is a big adjustment, especially to a small town guy
like McCann. Despite this all, he still drove in 75 runs which has to be
encouraging considering such a dip in average.
In sum, McCann’s
‘disappointing’ season wasn’t all too disappointing at all. He posted numbers
fairly consistent with his career trends despite an absurdly weird number
against right handed pitching. I think high expectations turned many against
him including myself and I am glad I dug deeper into his numbers to find out he
actually played pretty well.
Such a low batting
average won’t continue from McCann and he has nowhere to go but up. His power
has remained and shows no signs of slowing down, all of which are indications
of a strong season coming for the bald backstop in New York.
2015 McCann Prediction:
.259 AVG, 25 HR, 85 RBI
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All stats provided by
Baseball-Reference.com and Fangraphs.com
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